MOBILE, Alabama -- A federal judge here last week ordered prosecutors to more clearly explain charges in an indictment charging three foreign ship officers with falsifying logs to hide the fact that they dumped garbage overboard.

Prastana Taohim, Payongyut Vongvichiankul and Pakpoom Hanprap face charges that they violated U.S. law when they possessed fraudulent logs when the Gaurav Prem docked in the Port of Mobile in September.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Anderson protested to U.S. Magistrate Judge William Cassady that an order requiring a more detailed description of the charges was unnecessary because all of the information sought by defense lawyers was in the evidence they received from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

"Judge, we’re not playing hide-and-seek," he said.

But defense lawyers said it was unfair to flood them with a mountain of information and not give them adequate notice of exactly what prosecutors are alleging. Carl Woodard, an attorney for Vongvichiankul, noted that the indictment gives a 55-day range when authorities contend the dumping occurred.

"The government’s got to do better, your honor," he said.

Anderson said that date range corresponds to the vessel’s journey from South Korea to Mobile and that it is impossible to know the exact date when crewmembers tossed the waste overboard.

"We can’t provide what we don’t have," he said.

Cassady gave prosecutors until Wednesday to provide several details, including:

The specific "false, fictitious and misleading" entries in the ship’s Oil Record Book that crewmembers gave to the U.S. Coast Guard, and the dates and times the illegal discharges occurred.

The specific dates and locations that they contend Taohim, who was the vessel’s master, did not fully and accurately record discharges.

The basis for alleging that Vongvichiankul, the chief engineer, directed three subordinate crewmembers to lie to the Coast Guard and falsify records.

The basis for alleging that Vongvichiankul and Hanprap, the second assistant engineer, showed investigators engine room equipment that had been altered to conceal the use of a bypass system to discharge oily bilge waste.

A more specific description of the acts of intimidation that Vongvichuankul allegedly committed.